Redacted Wednesday Blind Item

My apologies, readers. It appears that our culture columnist doesn't quite grasp the concept behind a blind item. Hopefully this won't happen again, but in the meantime, I'll opine.

Consider this, if you will. For a bit of background, the Westboro Baptist Church, headed by the Reverend Fred Phelps, is a Topeka, Kansas-based hate group that masquerades as a religious organization. They have no dogma to speak of, except to use the more forboding passages of the Old Testament to condemn other people, most notably homosexuals, feminists, liberals, and "pagans." One look at the church-run website and a person would not be incorrect in saying that the Westboro Baptist Church hates everyone who is not a part of their malicious little cult. They are almost amusing in their hatred. Almost.

Of late, the WBC has been making a general nuisance of itself by demonstrating at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, saying that the soldiers were killed by God's own hand as retribution for being gay and defending a country that defends gay people. But now, in the same spirit of anti-homosexuality, they are planning to demonstrate at Heath Ledger's funeral....not because he was a homosexual, but because he portrayed a homosexual in a movie.

This planned demonstration is almost absurd. Almost. Were it not so hatefully insensitive to the late Heath Ledger's family, friends, and the millions of people who enjoyed in his acting, we could all happily laugh the WBC into obscurity. But a story like this begs the question, "Do these people have no souls?" I and my writing team lean towards, "No."

It is the acme of inpropriety to turn a solemn occasion like a funeral (regardless of whose funeral it is) into a platform to advance any ideology, let alone one of blistering, ignorant hatred. Heath Ledger's funeral should be about remembering him and what he stood for, and he most certainly did not stand for Phelps and company's agenda of bigotry.